The morning sun was already peeking over the forest as he climbed the snowy hill. He was running late. He pulled the fur-trimmed red robe tight around his wizened frame and doubled his efforts. The workshop was old, carved from black stone and blue glacial ice. No reindeer pranced or helpers scurried about. There was no sleigh. The songs and the stories, the presents and cookies were not the magic. They were embellishments. A circle of light stood in the center of the cavernous structure. He sat down in the center and began the song that would renew the world.
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It was the longest night of the year, and the village gathered to celebrate. The visiting anthropologist, who came from a small, distant planet called ‘Earth’ couldn’t help but think of Christmas. Lights were hung on the big tree in the center of the lake, and families set little vessels with lit candles on the water. “Does this ritual bring back the sun or appease the dead?” he asked his host sponsor. Xe blinked and tried to form a satisfying answer. The human came from an advanced civilization, but he was weirdly obsessed with superstition. “It looks pretty?” Xe ventured.
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The ship’s crew huddled around a monitor as the probe beamed back the first images of an extraterrestrial city. The scale of the abandoned ruins dwarfed anything human. They stared at a fountain, hundreds of meters tall. A crowd of humanoid figures stood on a plinth. A brown, murky liquid streamed from wide vessels where their heads should’ve been, dripping into cups in their hands. The pilot carefully brought the robot close enough to take a sample. “What do you think it means,” he asked. The chemist frowned at her tablet. “Well, we know they liked their coffee,” she replied.
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The Skinny: A delightful little adventure about photography and community Toem is a little gem of an indie adventure game about photography and perspective. This comforting little puzzle box is full of puzzles to solve, characters to help, and tiny locations to visit. Created by Swedish indie studio Something We Made, Toem only takes a few hours to play but is all about relaxation and comfort. Designed to be played in short bursts, it is the perfect game to wind down with at the end of the day or de-stress to over a coffee break as you take missions tracking down singing goats and finding the perfect spot to photograph a forest hotel. The game sets you in the shoes of a young photographer on an adventure to find the Toem, with no further explanation given. The tools at your disposal are your trusty camera and a very unusual public transit system that rewards public service with free rides. The game is divided into five zones, and at the start of each one, you’re given a public service card. As you explore a forest, a city, a seaside resort, and a mountain, you are given puzzles to solve in the form of requests of each area’s inhabitants. These can range from the simple, such as taking a photo of a requested subject, to the obtuse, such as recovering lost items or even restoring a power plant. After each puzzle, you are rewarded with a stamp on your card. Collect the requisite number of stamps, and you’re free to move along to the next area. But completionists will still have plenty of challenges to complete, animals to photograph, and hidden secrets to uncover beyond the game’s forgiving requirements. With one notable exception, Toem is presented in a charming black and white art style, and the small, isometric levels have a diorama-like quality. The characters are quirky, and a few of the puzzles are fiendishly clever, but I never felt stuck. Toem is a short and cozy experience that is perfect for unwinding by a roaring fire or relaxing with a hot cup of cocoa. If you’re looking for something to chill with at the end of the year, give this game a shot. Toem is available on PC from Steam and Epic, Nintendo Switch, and PS5.
They call her the Woman of the Woods. Although few have seen her, everyone knows the signs of her passage. The old forest is filled with good, well-maintained paths, hidden caches of supplies, and emergency shelters. She’s almost a figure of legend, a helpful wanderer out of the golden age when immortals walked the world. They say she can sing the forest to sleep and heal with a touch. Nobody sees her gathering herbs or surveying routes. There is little true magic left in her. But hard work makes her eternal life bearable when her grief is all that remains.
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We set the airship down in the mossy water as the sun dipped towards the swamp. The skiff was all elegant lines and swooping sails. It barely made a splash entering the water. The island was close. We’d buried the chest here long ago, trusting the safety of our treasure to flowing water and shifting geography. We disembarked and broke out the shovels. The Lich’s heart was still where we left it, pulsing with an eerie scarlet light. I nodded to my partner. It was time for us to make our move. But I never expected him to betray me.
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The forest existed in both worlds, making it the ideal spot for the two kingdoms to negotiate an alliance. The knight arrived in shining silver armor, with a jeweled longsword on his hip. The dragon descended from the canopy, its serpentine body stepping on thin air as they bowed to their counterpart. The spot was a hole in the fence between realities, and they each had a vested interest in keeping it small and well guarded. And yet, the dragons coveted the human kingdom’s wealth, and the humans desired mastery over the dragons’ magic. The alliance proved tenuous and brief.
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The museum stood empty and silent. The people had all disappeared, save for the security guards that patrolled the hall. The paintings were desperate for news of their missing audience. The Seurat, which had an enviable spot near the security office, heard snatches of information and doled out gossip to the rest of the installations. The renaissance paintings, no strangers to plague years, spread the information faithfully. The realists’ communications were perfectly accurate. But the impressionists got fuzzy on the details, and the baroque works couldn’t help but embellish. Once the news got to the surrealists, the story got weird.
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The tree stood in a corner of the little churchyard, a resilient and determined evergreen. The city had grown up around the church, and after the old neighborhood had been demolished to build skyscrapers, nobody came to mass these days. The land the little old church sat on was valuable, and the city had grander houses of worship. It was only a matter of time. The tree didn’t know any of this. But it was steady and had good roots. The priest strung it with lights for what would probably be the last time and thanked his most faithful parishioner.
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Everyone knows about Santa Claus’s eight flying reindeer. But few people wonder about how his counterpart, the Krampus travels in his grisly duty. He too has a team of creatures that pull his sleigh, but you could scarce call them reindeer. They are monstrous, wild things, and when they are not in their master’s service, they roam this very wood. Their antlers are a tangle of jagged bone, and their fang-filled mouths drip with an unjolly venom. They stalk after those who walk through the forest after dark, and they don’t care about naughty and nice. You’d better watch out…
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Hugh J. O'Donnell 